Time: Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us

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"In the U.S., people spend almost 20% of the gross domestic product on health care, compared with about half that in most developed countries. Yet in every measurable way, the results our health care system produces are no better and often worse than the outcomes in those countries."

"If you could figure out a way to pay doctors better and separately fund research … adequately, I could see where a single-payer approach would be the most logical solution," says Gunn, Sloan-Kettering's chief operating officer. "It would certainly be a lot more efficient than hospitals like ours having hundreds of people sitting around filling out dozens of different kinds of bills for dozens of insurance companies." Maybe, but the prospect of overhauling our system this way, displacing all the private insurers and other infrastructure after all these decades, isn't likely. For there would be one group of losers — and these losers have lots of clout. They're the health care providers like hospitals and CT-scan-equipment makers whose profits — embedded in the bills we have examined — would be sacrificed. They would suffer because of the lower prices Medicare would pay them when the patient is 64, compared with what they are able to charge when that patient is either covered by private insurance or has no insurance at all.

That kind of systemic overhaul not only seems unrealistic but is also packed with all kinds of risk related to the microproblems of execution and the macro issue of giving government all that power.

India now matters to U.S. interests in virtually every dimension. This Independent Task Force report assesses the current situation in India and the U.S.-India relationship, and suggests a new model for partnership with a rising India.

Rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries are increasing faster than in wealthier countries. The report outlines a plan for collective action on this growing epidemic.